CUTS to services for vulnerable people in Bexley and north Kent could lead to Panorama-style adult care abuse scandals, according to a union.

Unison has said slashes to staff pay and training at MCCH, a disabled service provider, will harm the care patients receive and put them at risk.

MCCH provides accommodation, food and care to 300 adults in Bexley including at the Smerdon Centre in Lumley Close, Belvedere, and the Carlton Centre, in Carlton Road, Sidcup.

It has 1,700 staff in the south-east, provides care in people’s homes in Crayford and mental health care in Dartford.

The union says all MCCH front-line staff in the south-east have been handed letters saying they must take pay cuts of up to 50 per cent to level out payments to staff.

It says staff training has moved online, with carers doing the majority of their training at home to save the company money.

The cuts come ahead of local government reductions in adult service grants which are expected to be announced in March next year.

Unison regional organiser Stephanie Cesana said: "The whole situation is dreadful.

"Staff will be paid as low as £6.35 an hour.

"Many of our members have told me they are not going to work for those rates.

"So you’ll get staff that just can’t get a job anywhere else.

"Care home abuse scandals, like that one in Bristol, happen when you employ people who can’t get a job anywhere else.

"We should be prepared for more scandals of that nature in the future."

Salary cuts have already been implemented in north Kent and are due to hit Bexley staff by April next year.

John Stanton, 75, of Welling, has a 33-year-old son who is cared for by MCCH staff at Carlton Centre in Carlton Road, Sidcup.

He said: "My son has been going there for 15 years and that’s his life.

"If staff leave, you can’t understand the impact this will have on him and others.

"They will be absolutely devastated when they leave."

News Shopper: Mr Stanton and Baldrati are worried their children's care will be affected

Peter Baldrati, 76, of Horton Road, Dartford, has a disabled daughter who receives care at her home in Broadway, Dartford.

She is fed through a tube into her stomach, struggles to move her arms and has been cared for in Bexley for 40 years.

Mr Baldrati said: “It’s disgusting. My daughter will be affected because the regular staff will leave and inferior staff will come in, the care will be affected.

“The regular staff are excellent but most of the agency staff are very poor.”

Bexley Council signed a contract in May this year commissioning MCCH to provide adult services for Bexley until May 31 in 2014.

A council spokesman said: "MCCH is independent of the council and its wages and other employment terms and conditions are a matter for it to agree with its staff.

"The proposed changes have come about as part of a planned remodelling of the services provided by MCCH and are not part of any council imposed funding reductions.

"We have robust contract monitoring and quality assurance systems in place and will continue to monitor the quality of care provided and take actions as appropriate."

A Kent County Council spokeswoman said: “How MCCH operates is up to the company and it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to comment on that.

“If there were concerns about the service then we would talk to them, but there is no reason to do so at the moment.”

A MCCH spokeswoman said: "Our changes are being introduced in order to provide a more personalised service to individuals, protect jobs and secure the long-term future of the services.

"We are implementing the changes without impacting the people we support and the high quality of support provided.

"We have not implemented an across the board reduction in salaries.

"We have aligned salaries to market rates within the sector and we are currently consulting with every member of staff."

On internet training they said: "E-learning courses complement our classroom based training and those courses include knowledge assessments that staff have to complete in order to pass."